Chapter 13 Part 2

The study fell quiet. Only the light and heavy clicks of stones on the board, the rustle of leaves, and the soft bubbling of tea could be heard.

Before long, Lu Yu’s eyes went wide. “Again!”

Xie Anqing didn’t say a word. She agreed.

“Keep going!”

“I refuse to believe it! One more!”

…

Half an hour later, Lu Yu slumped over the board. “I’m done, I’m done! Secretary Xie, this is just bullying!”

“Then what about all those games you won against me? Was that not bullying a beginner like me?” Huang Huaiyi asked.

Lu Yu gave an awkward little laugh and promptly fell silent.

Xie Anqing looked up, a black stone between her pale fingers. “Not playing anymore?”

Lu Yu shook her head so hard she nearly threw it off. “Sometimes you just have to know when to quit.”

Xie Anqing flicked the stone neatly into its box.

“Would you like some tea?” Huang Huaiyi asked, holding up her cup.

“Mm.” Xie Anqing turned and realized she had no idea when Chen Li had left.

“She said something urgent came up and she had to take care of it,” Huang Huaiyi explained.

Xie Anqing gave a quiet acknowledgment. Before she could pick up her teacup, she paused and took Huang Huaiyi’s free left hand.

The skin was old and wrinkled, the bones beneath it frail as twigs.

It was the sign of a life nearing its end.

Xie Anqing’s hand began to tremble uncontrollably. Huang Huaiyi squeezed it in return, set down her cup, and leaned toward her with a smile. She bumped her forehead gently against Xie Anqing’s and whispered, “Little A-Qing’s marriage contract still isn’t written. How could Teacher Huang bear to leave? There, gather up those tears. Your grandma’s watching from the river. All her life, she hoped you’d smile more.”

Xie Anqing’s throat tightened until it ached.

From the day she’d been born, there had been only three women around her: her grandma, Huang Huaiyi, and Wei Qiyun. One had taught her how to be a person—how to study—and how to live, tending flowers and plants. Another had taught her how to be quiet, through calligraphy. The last had taught her how to be lively, through the flute. With their three different surnames, they’d filled every blank space in her childhood.

Now one of them lay buried by the river, another was nearing the end of her life, and the last…

Footsteps sounded at the door.

Huang Huaiyi squeezed Xie Anqing’s still-trembling hand, leaned back into her chair, and smiled at Chen Li. “Finished with your urgent business?”

“Mm. All taken care of.” Chen Li’s skirt swayed as she walked. The movement caught Xie Anqing’s eye. She glimpsed a spot of unexpected blue, like paint from the wall.

Chen Li came over and sat down, leaning toward her teacup. The movement brought her close to Xie Anqing. When she lifted her eyes, she noticed, from the corner of her vision, a clear patch of red around Xie Anqing’s eyes as she looked out the window.

Chen Li’s fingers jerked against the cup. Half the scalding tea spilled.

By six that evening, the sky had completely cleared. The setting sun slanted through the windows.

Lu Yu and the others were excitedly crowding around the window, photographing the green hills and sunset after the rain. Xie Anqing took her leave of Huang Huaiyi, saying she had to go home and finish dinner. Chen Li couldn’t very well stay behind alone. Just as when they had arrived, they walked out one after the other, without exchanging a word.

The courtyard felt stifling after the rain, as if the air itself made it hard to breathe.

Xie Anqing scrolled twice on her phone before receiving a call from Xie Beibei. “Auntie, the sky’s clear! Can I go home and sleep tonight?”

Xie Anqing didn’t answer right away. She looked up at the crimson sky. A few seconds later, she frowned briefly. “Sure.”

Xie Beibei let out an excited shriek on the other end.

For once, Xie Anqing didn’t hang up immediately. She took it as a sign of approval for Xie Beibei’s work. “Before you leave, do one last patrol. Make sure…”

She stopped mid-sentence. Her gaze had fallen on the mural on the east wall, and her expression deepened.

She remembered that when she’d gone out, the wall had held nothing but a simple landscape: distant mountains, nearby water, golden wheat fields, and a level crossing stretching into the distance. Now someone stood on the tracks with a yellow dog in her arms. Her trouser legs were rolled up, and the river breeze tousled her hair. It was unmistakably the moment they’d first met, when she had hauled Guoqing out of the water.

…No, the painted version had her tie flying in the air, not clenched between her teeth.

In giving her a gentle image, Chen Li had also captured the sternness expected of a village Party secretary. She’d clearly put a lot of thought into it.

Xie Anqing didn’t know much about painting. She only knew that Chen Li had skillfully used several of the brush techniques common to traditional landscape painting. The composition was clean and balanced, the colors rich and even, without a single fussy stroke. It had to be a good painting.

Too bad Xie Anqing didn’t like it.

For one brief moment, she even felt an urge to destroy it.

On the other end of the call, Xie Beibei waited for her to continue. “Auntie?”

Xie Anqing finished her sentence. “Make sure… That’s all. I’m hanging up.”

“Beep.”

The call ended. Xie Anqing pushed the door open and went inside.

The footsteps behind her didn’t start again until a few seconds later. They followed at a measured distance, and when they reached the center of the courtyard, a voice finally spoke.

“Secretary Xie, the mural by the entrance is finished. Will it pass inspection?”

Xie Anqing stopped, as if she’d been expecting it. You couldn’t help yourself, could you? You have to toy with me until you get me, then get bored and toss me aside?

She gave a silent scoff.

Her phone disappeared into her pocket. She turned around, a faint warmth from the rising moisture lingering in her eyes. “If I said no, Miss Chen, would you change it?”

Daylight was worlds apart from the night. The moment Xie Anqing spoke, Chen Li recognized the sharpness she’d seen last night in the vague outline of her features. Chen Li’s heart gave a hard thump. She wanted to step back but couldn’t.

“That depends on why it doesn’t pass.”

“Personal reasons.”

“What personal reasons?”

“I don’t like appearing in photographs, paintings, videos, or anywhere else people might pay attention to me.”

“Why?”

“No reason.”

“Do you think I painted it badly?”

“I said there isn’t a reason. I don’t like it because I don’t like it. That’s all.”

“…”

The conversation abruptly ended. Silence fell without warning.

Xie Anqing knew she should stay calm. She should be patient. She should think of the villagers, the coming autumn harvest, and her promise to Zhang Guifen that by the end of the year after next, things would be better. She should do everything in her power to prevent the scenes from her dream from happening. That meant keeping up a peaceful front with Chen Li until everything was settled.

But Huang Huaiyi’s old, wrinkled hand seemed engraved in her mind. She couldn’t forget it.

She had fears of her own, didn’t she?

When they surfaced and she couldn’t avoid them, she only wanted to hide somewhere quiet and face them alone.

She wasn’t the little girl who couldn’t lift a bucket of water without help anymore. Given enough time, enough space, and enough quiet, she could make peace with anything.

Chen Li refused to give her any of those things she needed. Even now, she was still trying to break into Xie Anqing’s world.

Her emotions churned like the fermenting mash Xie Beibei had once compared them to. They rose and shook violently inside her chest, slammed against her breastbone, and finally burst with a crash—then went still.

Xie Anqing unclenched her hand at her side. “Chen Li, is this fun for you?”

Her emotions, her tone, her question—all of them had changed in an instant.

A trace of ink-darkness flickered deep in Chen Li’s eyes. She stood in the darkest patch of the courtyard’s shadow and met Xie Anqing’s gaze.

Water dripped in the courtyard. The wind shook the branches.

After what felt like half a century, Chen Li moved. “What do you mean, Secretary Xie?”

Xie Anqing almost laughed.

At this point, was there any need to keep pretending?

They were only two or three centimeters apart in height, a difference barely noticeable at a distance. Up close, Xie Anqing had to raise her eyes slightly to meet Chen Li’s.

The movement was like pushing open a door, like opening a window. All her bad feelings lived inside.

They had slipped out now and then before, because the door hadn’t been locked. But now it had been thrown wide, and she couldn’t control what came out.

“Exactly what I said.”

Her tone was more provocative than ever.

“Someone with a degree from a top university should have no trouble understanding me.”

“I’ve tried to understand,” Chen Li said. “All I found was that you’ve been avoiding me.”

“Yes.” She’d gone several days without coming back, of course she’d been avoiding Chen Li. “But why am I avoiding you?”

“Because I’m gay?”

“I know gay people. I don’t have any prejudice against them.”

“Then why?”

“You don’t know?”

The rapid-fire exchange ended there once again.

Rainwater still clung to the ground, the trees, the furniture, the houses—everything in the courtyard. Under the now-brilliant evening sun, it steamed furiously into the air. The atmosphere felt heavy enough that they had to keep breathing deeply just to draw breath.

Xie Anqing stood with her back to the light. Her eyes were so dark they seemed to drip ink.

Chen Li watched her lashes flutter. She lifted a hand, intending to wipe away a droplet of water near her temple.

The moment her hand moved, Xie Anqing seized it and yanked her closer.

In a flash, the distance between them vanished. They were nearly pressed together.

Xie Anqing stared her down. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Chen Li stood rigidly still. Numbness and swelling began to creep across the back of her hand. She had never seen Xie Anqing like this. The feeling of having no control over her was spreading at frightening speed. All of Chen Li’s past experience was useless now, and her composure was crumbling.

“I don’t know what to say,” Chen Li answered.

“But you know what to do?”

“What have I done?”

To Xie Anqing, the instinctive question sounded perfectly honest and innocent. It made her seem like the one who was pushing too hard, the one making a fuss over nothing.

For an instant, Xie Anqing almost laughed with anger. Her grip tightened uncontrollably.

Chen Li’s whole hand was numb. Pain throbbed through her wrist, but Xie Anqing showed no sign of letting go.

Their sharp, hard standoff continued to build.

It spread all the way to the eaves. Even the sparrows had gone still when Xie Yun’s voice came from the next courtyard.

“I’m going to talk to your aunt. You sit here and do your homework like a good girl. If you take one step, I’ll break one of your legs.”

“Okay, Mom. From now on, I’m a nail hammered into this chair.”

Xie Yun couldn’t help laughing. Her footsteps hurried away.

They grew fainter, then changed direction and began to approach.

Just before Xie Yun passed the wall and entered the courtyard, Xie Anqing leaned close to Chen Li’s ear. Only the two of them could hear her.

“Chen Li, don’t treat everyone like an idiot. And don’t insist on pretending you’re blind.”